TMC is an independent, primarily volunteer organization that relies on ad revenue to cover its operating costs. Please consider whitelisting TMC on your ad blocker and becoming a Supporting Member. For more info: Support TMC

I've always thought that, if cars had developed as EVs and an Anti-Elon wanted to build a gas-powered car, every engineer he tried to hire would laugh and walk away at the thought of the amount of complexity they'd have to create to make a low-emissions gas-powered car with 200K mile durability.
"And how many precision machining operations did you say would have to be done to build and assemble that engine and transmission?"
"And you're going to do THAT to keep the emissions from poisoning people?"
"And owners will have to send it in for maintenance every 5000 miles? "
"And find a place to fill it up with gas every 200 miles?"
"And how many different kinds of fluids in how many different mechanisms have to be kept drip-free for 200K miles?"
"Have you considered what would heppen with all that flammable fuel in an accident?"
"You're simply crazy. Have a nice day and get away from me"

My father worked in a GM plant and I got to tour occasionally, which was always a treat. Many years later I got to tour the Tesla Fremont factory. Wow, what a night and day difference. I hadn't realized manufacturing had changed so much in 20-30 years.

I've always thought that, if cars had developed as EVs and an Anti-Elon wanted to build a gas-powered car, every engineer he tried to hire would laugh and walk away at the thought of the amount of complexity they'd have to create to make a low-emissions gas-powered car with 200K mile durability.
"And how many precision machining operations did you say would have to be done to build and assemble that engine and transmission?"
"And you're going to do THAT to keep the emissions from poisoning people?"
"And owners will have to send it in for maintenance every 5000 miles? "
"And find a place to fill it up with gas every 200 miles?"
"And how many different kinds of fluids in how many different mechanisms have to be kept drip-free for 200K miles?"
"Have you considered what would heppen with all that flammable fuel in an accident?"
"You're simply crazy. Have a nice day and get away from me"

Click to expand...

Actually, cars did develop as EV's. Then, when Mr Ford could sell an entire car for the cost of an Edison battery, electric vehicles went away.
Until now.
Robin

I've always thought that, if cars had developed as EVs and an Anti-Elon wanted to build a gas-powered car, every engineer he tried to hire would laugh and walk away at the thought of the amount of complexity they'd have to create to make a low-emissions gas-powered car with 200K mile durability.
"And how many precision machining operations did you say would have to be done to build and assemble that engine and transmission?"
"And you're going to do THAT to keep the emissions from poisoning people?"
"And owners will have to send it in for maintenance every 5000 miles? "
"And find a place to fill it up with gas every 200 miles?"
"And how many different kinds of fluids in how many different mechanisms have to be kept drip-free for 200K miles?"
"Have you considered what would heppen with all that flammable fuel in an accident?"
"You're simply crazy. Have a nice day and get away from me"

a) any modern car production plant looks similar to Tesla's. The people at Ford obviously had their reasons for wanting to get rid of the old plant.
b) do you believe that the production of a Tesla is clean? Just look at the necessary mining of resources and the energy that's reqired for the production. Over all an EV is most probably "cleaner" than a conventional car. This doesn't mean that the production of an EV doesn't require significant resources, though.

For an ICE car? There is a whole mess of complexity beyond an EV build. I mean, they have to build a whole power plant for each car. That's crazy. There is much more complexity in an ICE car plant as is shown in the photo.

Well, I meant clean from more a design point of view, but I'm sure the reduction of parts, tubes, lubricants, transmission, etc. etc. sure helps makes it cleaner from an environmental point of view than an ICE car build.

My main point is that wheels, battery, electric engine is a much simpler and efficient "aka clean design" way to make a machine that people use to move around, compared to the complexity of building a machine that needs a power plan to make explosions from flammable liquid.

For an ICE car? There is a whole mess of complexity beyond an EV build. I mean, they have to build a whole power plant for each car. That's crazy. There is much more complexity in an ICE car plant as is shown in the photo.

Well, I meant clean from more a design point of view, but I'm sure the reduction of parts, tubes, lubricants, transmission, etc. etc. sure helps makes it cleaner from an environmental point of view than an ICE car build.

My main point is that wheels, battery, electric engine is a much simpler and efficient "aka clean design" way to make a machine that people use to move around, compared to the complexity of building a machine that needs a power plan to make explosions from flammable liquid.

Click to expand...

Well, if you look at the inside of a Model S battery with all its cells, chemical components, cables etc., that's quite complex as well.

Well, if you look at the inside of a Model S battery with all its cells, chemical components, cables etc., that's quite complex as well.

Click to expand...

Nah, its just a battery of batteries.

Maybe you could say a tank of gas is less complex than a battery of batteries. But battery tech is really not so complicated.

But a combustion engine is way more complex than an electric motor, which really runs on a basic 100 year old principle.

At some point, the move to electric cars may happen just because they become way less expensive to build as cost of battery and electric motors continue to decrease, while combustion engine complexity refuses to become cheaper as it has and the choice will become obvious.

Maybe I'm a bit weird, but when I looked at the two pictures, I saw the cables and hoses hanging off the engine assembly, and imagined that mess that lives under the hood of my ICE, and compared that with the essentially clean EV motor assembly. I fully expect that any ICE factory looks an awful lot like the Tesla factory, but what they're bolting in is the difference.

Believe me, there's nothing worse than a "Check Engine" light that resolves to "Small vacuum leak detected", and you look under the hood at roughly 270 miles of vacuum tubing ranging from tiny 1/8" hoses to 1" hoses, and realize that any of those hoses or connections could be the issue, and because it's a "small leak" finding it it going to be nearly impossible.